Sabine Bauer - Mirror, mirror

The latter wasn't a hyperbole. Or at least not much of one. You didn't have to be a genius to tell that the battle for the city gate had been vicious. Brutal and primitive, just like the weapons used.

When they'd finally reached the gate, the fighting had been over and the passage under the archway littered with bodies; some of them peasants or dwellers of the shantytown, but mostly guards-killed by whatever means the panicked multitudes had found handy. Though well past the gate now, Rodney thought he could still smell the sweet, coppery stink of death. It clung to the rags he was wearing, to his hair, his skin, and it made him gag.

"Rodney?" Teyla renewed her badgering.

"Fine. Fine. Why can't I just think out loud like everybody else, huh? And why wouldn't I be fine? I mean, look at it!" he added, pointing at the vista ahead, realizing too late that she wouldn't be able to see what he meant. He flushed with embarrassment, grateful that she couldn't see that either. Another habit, pointing. He couldn't help it. It was normal. When you were trying to show people something, you pointed, right?

God, she probably thought he was cracked.

Maybe they should just switch topics. Talk about something harmless. Recipes. Hair care, maybe.

Ahead, in the middle of what was left of the street, their intrepid leader, Ronon, had ground to a halt, arms stiff, fists balled as if he were trying to contain… what? Fear? Outrage? Despair? Any of the above was appropriate given the sight, brilliantly illuminated by the conflagrations that were spreading all over the city.

Past Ronon stretched a seemingly endless expanse of black, churning water, still lapping higher with every passing moment. Most of the shantytown was gone, washed away and drowned as though it had never existed. Racing too swiftly, the flood hadn't even left any token debris bobbing on the surface to mark the place where a few thousand people had lived and, in their majority, died.

Ronon spun around, stared at them, and for the first time since he'd met the man-upside down, as it happened, Rodney being strung up by his ankles-Rodney McKay saw something like defeat in his eyes.

"We've got to find a way of crossing the river," Ronon said, not sounding as if he remotely believed in the likelihood of such a contingency.

For once Rodney agreed, with the sentiment if not with the half-baked notion of paddling across… that. They'd simply have to wait. The Stargate didn't work anyway, so what did a few days matter? Surely the rain would stop eventually and the water levels would fall to something less life-threatening, wouldn't they?

Don't be an ass, Rodney! You know exactly what's going on. Or at least you sense it if you don't believe what I've been tell- ingyou for days now Charybdis is doing this, and it wont, stop. Not until we're all dead. Until you're dead. You're the key.

"What key?" he yelped, not caring who heard him. Who'd died and made him the Ringbearer, anyway? "Look, keys are things I lose. They have this habit of getting away from me, so I don't think it's a good idea at all to-"

"Rodney." Teyla's hand clasped his shoulder, oddly reassuring, as if she were anchoring him somehow. "Rodney, let us talk to Ikaros."

So much for reassurance.

"Are you crazy?" The Satedan slugger seemed to feel the same way. That was twice inside five minutes. A little disconcerting, if you asked Rodney, but nobody did.

"Ikaros is here," Teyla observed casually. "He is with Rodney."

"Figures. Always thought McKay was possessed." Ronon took a few steps forward, and peered over Rodney's shoulder at Teyla. "If I break his neck, I'll kill that bastard Ikaros?" He sounded altogether too hopeful.

"Ronon!" murmured Teyla. "This isn't helping. We need to find out what Ikaros knows."

Muttering something crude, Ronon backed off, clearing the view of the river. Rodney could have done without the reminder and stared dismally at a large, dark shape, twisting and bucking and groaning as eddies and undertow spiraled it downstream. The shivering gleam of the fires in the city and on the fortress painted unsteady red highlights on weather-grayed wood. It was a barn, or half of one, long emptied of its inhabitants and spinning sluggishly downriver. Rodney tried to make sure there weren't any decomposing cows floating past and suddenly felt himself drift out of control.

"I'll oblige in a second," Ikaros said brightly, using Rodney's voice, using Rodney's arm to point at the bam. "I think right now we should try to catch the boat. The next one might be a while in coming."

"What?" Ronon turned back to the swollen river, understood instantly. "Move it!"

Teyla followed blindly-to coin a phrase-spurred by complete faith in Ronon, if not the presence she'd sensed inside of Rodney. The water seized her like a vise, brutally cold, as cold as the stream in her cave, she thought, gasping, and wondered in some distant corner of her awareness how many thousand years ago or from now that might have been or would be. What she could feel of her body was numb and clumsy and wanted to shrink into a nutshell just to escape from the breathtaking cold. She couldn't say whether her hands and feet were moving, maybe they did, maybe they didn't, she ordered them to keep kicking, paddling, she knew that much. But it wasn't enough. Soaked with water, her clothes were too heavy. Shaking, panting, flailing, she coaxed her fingers to reach for her throat, unclasp her cloak.

They slipped, then an eddy grabbed her, pulled her under, whipped her into a helpless spin. She thrashed against the tow, no longer knowing which way was up, water burning in her lungs, fabric heavy as lead throttling her, her arms and legs aching with the effort, slowing. Slowing. An insidious voice in her mind whispered that there was no point in struggling, that letting go would be so much kinder, simpler. She listened to the siren song, conceding its rightness, relishing the ease of it, allowed herself to sink, and-

If she screamed, she'd breathe in water, which would seal her fate, so she channeled her fury into renewed motion. She was Teyla Emmagan, she was a warrior, and she would not go out like this. Not like some unwanted whelp tossed into a pond to drown and knowing no better than to give in. When the time came she would go out fighting, but now wasn't the time. She hadn't decreed it yet.

Forcing frozen limbs back into motion, she kicked and clawed away from the maelstrom, not sure whether she was heading up or down, but away at least, away. It had been up. Coughing and choking, she broke the surface and burst into sore-throated laughter when an oxygen-starved starburst of sparks showered through black nothing. Of all the things to see…

The wisp of amusement flew apart like the sparks when realization struck. The black nothing was still there, behind that starburst, and the current had spun her round and round and head over heel. She had no idea where the others were, where she needed to go or how to orient herself.

Stay afloat.

She'd be washed up somewhere, take things from there.

Stay afloat.

Stay-

Something snatched her cloak, hard, and her first reaction was panic and the instinct to tear free. If she'd gotten snagged on a piece of debris, the river could drag her wherever it-

"For God's sake, don't fight me! I've got you!" Rodney. "I've got you," he wheezed again, reeled her in on her cloak as if she were a catch of fish, and pressed her against a scrawny sixteen-year-old chest. "Contrary to the behavioral tendencies of my current age group I'm not trying to cop a feel," he spluttered. "So bear with me "

It punctured her panic like nothing else could have. She half imagined she could feel a hot flush of embarrassment rising from his skin-imaginary or not, the warmth was welcome-and smiled, oddly convinced by a sense of safety. With strong, stubborn kicks and strokes, Rodney steered them in a direction she probably wouldn't have taken on her own, but then, on her own she'd likely have swum in circles. Suddenly she heard a differ ent sound over the roar of the river; the groan of timber joints pulled and pushed by the current to within an inch of breaking. She also heard what sounded like rushed footfalls, then a thump and the dry splintering of wood, and a string of curses.